Spellbinders Collection

by Molly Cochran

  The darkness spread in front of him, grew form, became rocks and kelp sloping off to his right into shadows of nothing. He kept pulling in the black line, hand over hand, until a black cube separated from the murk and he touched rust-scabbed iron, the mooring ring rubbed clean of weed by the constant chafing of the chain with the rise and fall of waves, the pivot of the current and the tide. His fingers wouldn't grab.

  Handcuff. His brain fuzzed and sputtered, lazily. Hook the cuff to the ring. He fumbled at it, finally snagging the hook with one cuff like gaffing a fish. He batted at the open arm until it seemed to snap into place. Wrist. Do something with the wrist, with the other cuff, let go and then rehook.

  He lost his grip on the chain and floated loose, drifting upwards. His ears buzzed now, dark spots alternating with silver bubbles across his eyes. Mooring ring. He kicked back, wondering why his feet barely seemed to move him. No fins. Negative buoyancy. Breathe out to sink.

  He sank again. His hand hooked the chain like a claw, fingers stiff and useless. Wrist into cuff. Bash the swing-arm into place. Done. Mission accomplished. Back to the surface.

  Something held him. The chain rose up past his face to the silvery edge, curving mirrors of air against water, the edge between life and death. Gary fumbled for the button on his buoyancy compensator, trying to lift off the bottom. He couldn't find it. Couldn't find his mouthpiece, to fill his lungs and rise. Couldn't find the release on his weight belt. Tangled in the kelp or the pot-warp of some damned ghost trap. His brain fogged to the same dark gray as the water around him, lit by a neon sign remembered from a dive shop: There are old divers, and bold divers, but no old, bold divers.

  Something held him. His brain shivered. His lungs dove past red pain into darkness and warmth, and he felt the cold and pressure in the marrow of his bones. They burned and flowed inside his muscles, as if they wanted to escape from the mistake the rest of his body was making, escape and leave the rest of him behind like a jellyfish.

 

  The water held a familiar scent. It wasn't the taste of his own blood, though that tinged the water around him. This was a difference in the water itself, remembered from the edge of the bay, as if a stream of fresh water flowed up from the kelp beneath him. He twisted to follow it down, his need for air forgotten. Something jerked at him again. He rolled against the pull. Sharp pain lanced through his wrist, and he was free. Free to follow that taste down past the roots of the kelp, past the rocks, into a hole that swallowed him in darkness.

  The smell led him deeper, into tight spaces worn smooth by the ebb and flow of ages. His body flowed with the water, sinuous, driving, his nose sure of the way. Side passages held less fresh water, held less of the smell of warmth, tasted different and less welcoming. He twisted around a hairpin turn and rose and the welcome surrounded him.

  A red sun glowed in the darkness, brought down beneath the sea and the rock. It woke memories in his head. He'd seen it before, seen it once and then it had hidden from him. He couldn't remember why it was important. The smell of welcome strengthened as he swam closer.

 

  The words should mean something. They woke joy in one corner of his mind, but they didn't connect with the smooth elation of swimming free. They didn't connect with the endurance and strength he found within himself.

  Other words echoed, half-remembered. "When you change, remember to change back." He fought against them. He felt complete. He was where he belonged.

 

  He twisted, with a kick of his lower body. The red sun loomed in front of his nose, small, no bigger than his head, dripping crimson. It was injured. Blood in the water meant food. He bit at the wound, and found warmth in his mouth. He held something hard against the inside of his cheek, savory, slippery against his flesh. It was good.

  The wounded sun held still. He could surface, breathe, return to feed again. He turned to the faint light of the surface, rising lazily. His body told him he could stay under much longer, but there was no need. The food wasn't deep, the water felt warm and still, no sharks or orcas threatened.

  Rock ledges rose under his body, bare of weed as if they had been scoured clean by storms. He surfaced. Yellow suns shone on him from several angles, out of black sky, and he felt the wrongness of it. He had left gray sky and rain behind him when he dove.

  He squirmed up on the shore, damp rock under his fur, and blinked. There was no sky. There was no wind, no fog, no rain. The water lay still behind him, rippled only by his own wake. This was a trap. He rolled over, ready to dive back into the safety of the water at the faintest threat.

  "When you change, remember to change back." Ellen and Peggy needed him. That corner of his mind expanded and meaning flooded back. He remembered the fiery pain as his bones softened and flowed. The memory was the deed.

  His wrist hurt.

  Gary stared at his left hand, deformed and purple and already swelling. He remembered the tug of the cuff, and rolling away from the pull. Dumb. If he'd pulled straight back, his flipper would have slid out of the cuff. A seal's flipper was much more flexible than a man's hand, could easily have slipped out of that cuff. If you're going to plan cute tricks like that, remember them!

  "You damned fool!"

  It was Ben, striding angrily through the entry from the stairs. He unfurled a fleece blanket and wrapped it three times around Gary's shoulders before hugging him. Gary could feel the old man trembling with fear and relief.

  Gary shrugged him off and worked his right hand free. He spat into his palm and sighed. His new Tear glowed bright crimson, red as the blood flowing from the barnacle cuts but with an inner light. He sagged with exhaustion before stiffening his knees. The joy kept him standing.

 

  He glanced from the Tear in his palm, to Ben's face. "I did it! Now I know why Dad put that buoy there. It marks another entry. It marks the Selkie path to the Dragon's Eye . . . ."

  His words trailed off. Pain and relief furrowed Ben's face, traced by streaks of shining water. The old man was crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Alice calmed herself, staring into darkness. The house felt dangerous enough without adding her rage to the flames. That was for later, for the battle. Then she could afford to go berserk. She needed coolness and clarity now. She needed to marshal all her allies. She felt them waiting in the shadows of the cellar around her, lurking in the depths of the spring beneath her feet, circling high above the chimneys like the eagle riding his thermals. The stone of the cellar seemed to tremble like a leashed dog smelling her prey, eager to taste blood.

  Again she built her small fire on the spring's altar. This time she included wood from an ash tree growing by the Morgan house, close to the windows of the room Ellen and Peggy shared. Even fresh-cut from a living tree, ash would burn hot and clean. She thanked the tree for its gift of a limb, for its protection of the girls it knew and guarded, the girls who had climbed it and hugged it close to their hearts. She touched flame to the kindling and waited until the tiny coals were ready.

  "Wind of the west, I call to you. Guard the guests of this House. Guard Ellen and Peggy." She scattered a pinch of tobacco into the coals. Again the glow sent blue smoke spiraling up, straight to the chimney flue and into the sky.

  "Wind of the east, I call to you. Guard the guests of this House. Guard Ellen and Peggy." A second pinch of tobacco followed the first.

  Today the smoke would be invisible, rising into fog and mist. That didn't matter. The winds would taste it, the clouds would hear her plea, the waters would carry it to the waiting soil and stone. The guardians would hear.

  "Wind of the south, I call to you. Guard the guests of this House. Guard Ellen and Peggy." A third pinch. "Wind of the north, I call to you. Guard the guests of this House. Guard Ellen and Peggy." A fourth.

  She poured more tobacco from the palm of her right hand. It cascaded into th
e coals in a shower of sparks.

  "Spirits of the earth, spirits of the water, spirits of the sky, I send smoke to you. I send sweet smoke to you. Guard this land. Guard the people of this land. Guard the giver of this gift. Guard us against evil. Make the sun shine into darkness, make the wind sweep the air clean, make the waters wash away the stains that lie on the land. Guard us against evil."

  That was the basic ritual. Then she poured the last of the tobacco into the fire and added the other words, the words she'd hoped she'd never need to use when she'd learned them from Aunt Jean.

  "Spirits of the earth, spirits of the water, spirits of the sky, I send smoke to you. I send sweet smoke to you." She swallowed, her throat tight. "Powers of this land, I call on you to harm. Powers of this land, I call on you to kill. I summon you to harm those who would cause harm. I summon you to kill those who would kill. Seek out those who stole children from this House. Seek out those who sent evil to this House. Seek out those who would gain by this evil. Find them wherever they may hide. Bring pain and death to them. Make their blood feed your roots. Make their bones sweeten your soil. Send their souls to join the stone from which they were born. May their own weapons destroy them. May the fires of the land and the waters of the sea devour them."

  She paused before speaking the final words, the words she couldn't pull back once they passed her lips. "Let this thing happen. If there is evil in it, let it fall upon my own head."

  It was done. She felt the smoke closing in around her, squeezing, burning in her eyes and nose, testing her. Power ebbed and flowed with her heartbeat. She heard distant screaming, curses in Naskeag, Welsh, and English, and knew that her chant had stirred more than just the powers she had summoned. The oil lamps flared like flashbulbs and then died.

  She blinked back tears. The cellar lay black around her, quiet and empty. The powers had spread out into the land. She felt them hunting, as if they extended her touch throughout the ancient lands of the Naskeags. Her knees felt like ice, and she tested them with her real hands. She found cold wetness. She was kneeling in the pool, in the spring's water. She groped around her, finding handholds, and pulled herself upright. Her fingers brushed a soft bundle and she lifted it. It was heavy.

  The cellar stairs groaned under her feet. She climbed into the parlor, into the bright grayness of the light, and breathed deep. It was done. She was still alive. As Kate would put it, the roof had stayed a working distance from the cellar.

  She flexed her fingers, wincing at the red pits her nails had dug into her palms. That wasn't something she wanted to do every day. Once in a lifetime was too often. She squatted down and closed her eyes again, relishing the soothing darkness. Besides, that way she didn't have to choose between the different rooms she was seeing.

  Her head hurt. Cool hands touched her forehead and the back of her neck, drawing the pain out and sending peace in its place. Caroline. She felt a breath in her ear, heard whispered words.

  "You know, if you kill yourself you won't be able to rescue those kids."

  "'M okay."

  "With all due respect to my beloved aunt, that's bullshit."

  Alice shook her head and set the bundle on the floor. "Jus' help me get into this clown suit."

  "And again I say, 'Bullshit.' You blacked out on me yesterday and again this morning. You've still got a lump on your head bigger than Glooskap's mountain. How many fingers am I holding up?"

  Alice batted the hand away, rather than trying to fake a count. She chose a bundle from the three available on the three different parlor floors, carefully avoiding the question of how she could get three images out of two eyes. She fumbled with the thongs that bound it. "Help me get this open. Get it on. It'll give me strength. Block off the feedback from Kate."

  "How is she? Where is she?"

  "Across cold water. Safe. Alone." Alice shook her head, then winced. "Kate Rowley on a boat. You don't know how funny that is." Her tongue was working better now. Maybe her fingers would follow that example.

  Between them, they undid the yellowed linen wrappings. Shimmering color spilled out, glass and shell beadwork on a doeskin base. Patterns flowed across the surfaces, forming flowers and leaves that then condensed into interlocking swastikas, left-handed and right, which swirled and drew the eyes and formed yet larger patterns. Hypnotic. Alice blinked and shook her head again, breaking the spell. She ran her fingers over the surface and backing.

  The Haskell regalia — this would be the first time that Caroline had ever seen it. Preserved in the aura of the spring, it was old out of mind. The sash was all shell-work and even predated the Morgans. Museum conservators would have fits if they got their hands on this stuff. Glass-beaded Native work couldn't be older than the 1500s, but the sinew and linen threads that bound the patterns together would carbon-date to centuries earlier. Totally impossible.

  The bundle unrolled under her fingers: vest, leggings, sash, skullcap, satchel. Chants said that the doeskin had been tanned by simple, tiresome, chewing. It was as supple and smooth as velvet. Everything had been made with open side-seams and thong ties, to fit generations of women large and small. Alice could wear it and not appear ridiculous, though the vest hung down to mini-skirt length and the leggings cinched around her waist. Even someone as massive as Kate could still fit inside. She'd show a lot of skin, though. Kate — that neck-pouch in her truck was part of the whole, carried some of its power. It was darker because of much handling, as it had been used for small protections through the ages.

  Alice felt her headache fade as power flowed, released from the bundle. She caressed the beaded surfaces. Colors became textures under her fingertips, feeling of rose and lavender and indigo and emerald.

  Caroline was staring at the patterns, eyes vague, almost drunken. Alice sympathized, remembering the first time Aunt Jean had shown her the ceremonial dress. It could go straight to your head.

  "Help me get this stuff on. The spring says we have to get moving within an hour. Otherwise, Ellen and Peggy face some really nasty things."

  Caroline shivered as the regalia's spell broke. She reached out tentatively and picked up the vest, touching it as if she expected it to blow up in her hands. "You going to wear a Second Chance tee-shirt under this?"

  "Can't." Alice shrugged into the heavy vest, adjusted the ties, and reached for the sash. Already she felt stronger, more sure with her hands. Her headache faded into a thin memory. "Kevlar would interfere with the flow of power. Sort of acts like insulation and electricity. You have to wear cotton, wool, or linen only — natural fibers, nothing synthetic." A phantom smile flitted across her lips. "Back in the old days, you didn't wear anything under it. That would really put the preachers' noses out of joint."

  Caroline stared pointedly at the open crotch of the leggings as she adjusted them over her aunt's slacks. "I can see how it might. I'd still rather have you wearing a bulletproof vest. In God we trust, but carry a backup. You know, the belt and suspenders sort of thing."

  "Where's your belief in Injun magic?"

  "You mean Injun magic like the Ghost Dance? Bring back the buffalo, white man falling dead like winter flies? Seems like that religion kinda vanished after Wounded Knee. Those magic shirts didn't stop the soldiers' bullets worth a damn."

  Alice grimaced and nodded, then adjusted the skullcap over her hair. The gaudy yarmulke wanted to slide off every time she moved. She finally tied it down with locks of hair. "Well, you'd better wear your vest. I think we've got a spare that would fit Gary, as well. I know he can't wear it while he's swimming in, but use your feminine wiles to make him put it on when he's changed back."

  Caroline snickered. "Feminine wiles? He isn't interested in my butt. If he won't wear the damned vest, I'll threaten to spank him. He thinks I'm his mother, not his sister. God knows, he doesn't see me as a woman." She paused. "Brother or not, I may have to do something about that."

  "Well, you do look a lot like Lainie at your age. And he's met her. Don't be too hard on him. The poor guy's
still sorting out which set of parents to believe in."

  Alice stretched. The aches had vanished, and she felt ready to rassle bears. She started toward the fireplace and then stopped. She'd noticed that Caroline kept edging sideways rather than turning her back on her aunt. "Turn around."

  Caroline ducked her chin like a turtle retreating into its shell. She froze for an instant as if she was going to rebel, then turned. She was wearing tan camouflage, cargo pants and baggy top, stuff that would help her disappear inside tunnels of Stonefort granite. Alice lifted the hem of the top, exposing a large black automatic tucked into the back of her niece's belt. Alice quietly removed the pistol and clip holster, a pair of spare magazines, and pushed Caroline's shoulder, turning her again.

  "No gunfights. You and your brother are supposed to be mice at a cat show. Get in, get the kids and Dan, get out, don't get noticed. You know how to hide. You start shooting instead, it'll all go to hell. I've got one fight, and I won't need this for it, win or lose. Your cousin Ron takes care of the rest.”

  "Cousin Ron?"

  "Ron Pelletier. Cousin on your mother's side. Ron's in the, um, import-export business. Competes with the Pratts. They've got a little jurisdictional dispute to arbitrate. I took the liberty of coordinating our schedules with him. Kinda suspect your daddy Ben has pulled them into his tangled web, as well. It's the sort of thing ol' Moriarty Morgan would do."

  Caroline looked uneasy. Alice thought she knew why. "It's a small town, girl. Everyone is some kind of cousin of yours. Even the Pratts. Remember that before you start grabbing guns."

  She took a closer look at the pistol in her hand. 9mm, Browning style. Memory nagged at her, and she tried to find the serial number. There wasn't one. Never had been. Frigging sterile CIA special.

  "Damn. Aunt Jean was getting a little forgetful in the last few years. This was supposed to go into the bay. There are probably a couple of slugs in an evidence locker down in Augusta, waiting for a match. Where'd you find it?"